NE410/510 - Lecture 9: The Critical Condition and Vacuum Boundary Conditions

In this lecture we solve the neutron Diffusion Equation to determine the shape of the neutron flux in a 1-D slab of homogenous material. We introduce several boundary conditions for the neutron flux (including the Vaccum Boundary Condition), introduce the fundamental mode of the neutron flux, and use the Geometric Buckling and Material Buckling to solve for the critical thickness for the 1-D slab.